


Searching Scars

by Taupefox59



Category: Poldark (TV 2015), Return to Treasure Island (TV 1996)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bisexual Characters, Complicated Feelings about Scars, Getting Together, M/M, Ross & Demelza are adoptive sibs in this one, Scars, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taupefox59/pseuds/Taupefox59
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU - Every time a person gets a scar, their soulmate gets a matching one.</p><p>Ross grew up hearing soul-mate matches being degraded in every way possible.<br/>Jim's greatest fear was that he somehow would miss his soulmate.</p><p>Luckily for them, when scars are just proof of a life lived, love turns out to be stronger than fear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Searching Scars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mosslover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosslover/gifts).



> Mosslover came into my inbox and was all 'soulmate AU'? and I KNOW this isn't what was meant by that, but then IT HAPPENED, and I NEED SOMEONE TO BLAME. So. Yeah.
> 
> Un-beta'd, so if you catch anything, please let me know! Con/Crit always welcome.

Jim knew he had a soul mate from when he was five. His mother Caroline had been covering him with sunscreen when she’d noticed. Jim’s right knee had four silvery spots: scars from injuries that Jim had never had.

Caroline had touched them gently, with joy in her heart. Her little boy would never have to be alone. Somewhere out there was a match for him. Caroline had never had a match. All of the scars that she had, she’d earned alone. She thought she’d found happiness in Jim’s father, but then he’d left and never returned. She wasn’t sure if he’d left because he’d found a match or not, but in the dark of the night, she would always wonder.

‘Jim,’ she’d asked kindly, running her fingers over his knee. ‘Did you fall at all recently?’

Jim had looked at her with confusion clear in his bright blue eyes. ‘I don’t think so?’

‘Didn’t scrape your knees up at all?’ She wanted to be sure, and Jim was an active boy. It was possible she’d missed an injury.

Jim leaned down and realized that she was looking at the scars. ‘Oh no!’ He said, grinning cheerfully, ‘I just got those!’

‘You just got these?’

‘Mmm-hmm!’ Jim nodded enthusiastically. ‘I saw ‘em! My knee felt all tingly and then I looked and I got these!’

Caroline had to close her eyes against the burn of tears. Her little boy would be okay. He would never have to face the world, wondering why… She pulled her son close and hugged him fiercely.

‘Do you know what that means?’ she whispered in his ear.

‘I got cool spots?’

She laughed, and pulled away so she could look Jim in the eyes. ‘It means that somewhere out there, there’s someone who will love you more than anyone else in the world. Someone who’s waiting for you, who will fit you better than anyone else.

Jim stared at her with wide eyes. ‘Love me more than you?’

Caroline laughed, and pulled Jim in for another hug. ‘No one will ever love you more than me, my little Captain. But the person who also has those marks? They’ll come as close as anyone can.’

Jim had looked at her for a long moment, then nodded seriously. ‘Okay.’ he paused then continued, ‘Can I go play on the swings now?’

Caroline could only laugh. ‘Of course you can my love.’ And Jim had bounded away with the shining enthusiasm of innocence.

  


****

  


Over the years, Jim learned more about what it meant to have a soulmate. Scars would show up on occasion, so Jim knew the other person was still out there. Every time he got a new mark, he would go over it, press against the skin until he had it memorized. He would lay awake at night thinking up stories of how his soulmate had gotten every one of them.

Jim also caused some scars to appear on his soulmate. He’d been out camping and slipped with a pocket knife, slicing open his palm, leaving a thin silvery line that was almost invisible against the lines of skin. Jim had fallen while rock-climbing, breaking his arm badly enough that it had taken surgery to fix.

Through it all though, there was a thin line of trepidation that threaded through his mind.

_What if he missed them?_

Because Jim had a soul-mate. He knew from the scars on his knees and the shooting star near his elbow, and the circular remnants of what had clearly been a puncture wound on his foot. What Jim didn’t have was anything out the ordinary. He didn’t have any particularly special mark that would set him apart. Every one of his scars disappeared beneath his clothes, and as the years stretched into decades, Jim couldn’t stop the worry. What if they’d already met, and not known? What if he’d already missed his chance?

He’d thought about creating something. Dragging a knife into his skin, making some mark that no one would ever be able to mistake it for something else. He’d almost done it, until Caroline had caught him.

It had been a hard day for both of them, but she had looked hard into his eyes and asked how he would feel, if some kind of brand appeared on his skin one day. If his soul-mate was so proprietary as to mark him up in public without ever even knowing his name. Jim had shrunk back upon realizing the truth of her words, and once again resigned himself to waiting.

 

****

 

Jim was in his twenties when he decided he was tired of waiting. Perhaps he wouldn’t meet his soul-mate, but perhaps he never would. His mother had never had a soul-mate. Soul-mates were hardly a requirement to function in the world. Jim had gone out, determined to meet someone worth spending time with.

Jim met Coral at the all-night corner store. Three in the morning, and he had given in to the kind of despair that could only be fixed by ice cream. The walk to the corner store was long and cold, but it was the only place open after all the bars had long since closed. He’d wandered into the store, into the back corner where there were the chillers were fully stocked with cheap beer, and the selection of ice cream was tragically picked through. The only boxes left were slid far to the back of the shelf and covered in a thick layer of frost.

Jim sighed deeply, cursed the world for his terrible luck, then opened the door to the freezer. It was then that he realized, not only was there only the dregs left, he was also too fucking short to reach them.

Jim closed the door and glared at it, as if that would somehow change the variables of his predicament. It was then that Coral walked in. She was wearing a cardigan and a thick scarf to ward off the cold, but also high heels. Jim frowned for a moment, trying to gauge if she was taller than he was. He couldn’t decide, so he growled and turned back to the freezer. The ice cream was still tragically out of reach. Jim took another moment, and then decided his desire for sugar outweighed the awkwardness of approaching a stranger in a corner store at three in the morning. He glared at the ice cream one last time before turning to the woman wandering down the aisles of the shop.

‘Er, hi.’ He said, waving a bit from the end of the aisle, but not approaching.

She turned at him with a raised eyebrow and the hint of a frown on her mouth, ‘You want something.’ It wasn’t a question. It was a statement from a woman who clearly didn’t want to deal with bullshit from men at three in the morning.

Jim winced. ‘Ehm. A bit. Just - ah, your heels!’ he said, pointing, and then, realizing that pointing at her shoes was not going to help his case, he continued quickly, ‘I - there’s - uh.’ He paused, cursing his inability to form coherent sentences at stupid o’clock in the morning, and the pride that was preventing him from asking the question outright.

‘My shoes are fucking fantastic. Do you have a point?’

Jim closed his eyes and braced himself. _Ice cream over pride_ he reminded himself. Deep breath. He bit his lip and then spat it out. ‘I wanted ice cream, but there’s hardly any left and it’s on the back of the shelf and I can’t reach it and I thought that maybe…’ he trailed off, ‘because your heels…’

The woman stared at him for a long moment, then burst out laughing, her white teeth flashing bright against the warm brown of her skin. ‘You need me to reach something for you?’

Jim could feel his face burning. ‘If you could try…’

She laughed again, walking down the aisle towards where Jim stood near the freezers. ‘Yeah, alright. Which one did you want?’

Jim looked up at the case. ‘Honestly, any of them.’

Coral looked up. ‘Selection’s a bit shit.’

‘I walked all the way here.’ Jim said, ‘I’m not leaving without what I came for.’

Coral laughed again, then paused. ‘You know… I know a place that’s got gelato.’

Jim turned to stare at her. ‘Now? At-’ he checked his watch, ‘At 3:47 in the morning?’

Coral laughed. ‘Yeah, it’s a weird place. The Hispaniola, if you’ve heard of it?’

Jim shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, you’d remember it.’ Coral said with a knowing grin. ‘So what do you say?’

Jim glanced at her, in her functional but stylish winter gear, and then himself in his ratty jeans and layered shirts. ‘Ehm…’

‘Don’t worry about it. No dress code at the Hispaniola. Trust me, you’ll fit right in.’

‘Ehm..’ Jim said again.

‘Your choice. No pressure.’ Coral said, ‘If you want, I can get you some super-frosted ice cream to take home. If you want though, we can go get something else.’

Jim bit his lip, and then remembered: He was trying to live his life. No more waiting. He looked up at her and grinned. ‘Take me to gelato!’

She grinned. ‘Excellent choice…’ she trailed off.

‘Oh! Jim.’ He said, ‘My name’s Jim.’

‘Coral.’ she said, holding out her hand, and Jim shook it.

 

Jim and Coral became fast friends. Coral had scars, but she had laughed when Jim asked about them.

‘I live my life, Jim.’ She’d said, ‘If they’re really my soul-mate, that’s what they’d want.’

Jim had stared at her, never having thought of it that way before.

‘They’re my soul-mate,’ She said, ‘the way I see it, that makes it my job to be the me-est me that I can be. So when we meet, I’m the best fit that I can be. If I spend my whole life waiting, then I won’t be nearly as much, when I meet them. If - if soul-mates fit like puzzle pieces, right? They’re going to fit me, however I am. So I make sure that I like me, and then trust, y’know? Because I want my soul-mate to fit the me that I love.’

Jim stared at her, the warm light in her dark eyes, and the sandy bronze of her skin. ‘So, you don’t want to wait for your soul-mate.’

‘I want to live my life, Jim.’

Jim swallowed hard. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever thought about soul-mates before, but what she’d said… if they were soul-mates, they would just _fit_. Wherever they were. Whatever they’d been through. He looked up at her. ‘Can I kiss you?’

Coral smiled, soft and sweet. ‘I think I would like that very much.’

 

Jim had often scoffed at the term ‘Friends with Benefits’, until he realized that was exactly the nature of his relationship with Coral. It wasn’t the love of ages, it wasn’t crossing oceans or pledges of eternity. It was late nights with cheap cider, when laughter and talk faded into the press of mouths and moved to the sweet highs of pleasure.

They both knew that they had a soul-mate somewhere, but they weren’t waiting.

  


Everything changed when Coral’s father came back to town. It hadn’t taken long for word to spread at the Hispaniola. The legend had returned: John Silver.

 

Silver was a personality like nothing Jim had ever seen before. He seemed to take up more space than existed in a room, exuding a nearly claustrophobic charisma. Silver had found out about Jim, and after only an afternoon of talk, Silver had offered Jim a position on a construction crew. Silver had a contract to build a mansion of a house, and he was looking for ‘Men of Character’ to help him build it.

Jim had never built anything in his life, but thought that construction sounded a far sight better than his job of waiting tables, so he’d agreed.

Working with Silver earned Jim an entirely new set of scars, but ones he was proud to wear. Silver taught Jim to build. Jim wound up with a line through the pad of his thumb from where he’d shot himself with a nail-gun while putting up the framing of the house. His knuckles collected knicks from prying out staples and dropping saw blades and having to blindly feel his way through to properly pull electrical wire.

  


The last scar that Jim earned from Silver was a burn. A rectangle, about the length of Jim’s thumb. Because the house had been finished, and had been sold. Jim had been walking, and decided to go by, to see it one last time before it became someone home. Instead he’d found a blazing inferno. He’d rushed forward, watching the work from the past six months of his life succumb to the heat of the flame.

He’d gotten too close, and an ember had fallen.

The burn had hurt, but nearly as much as the when the disaster had been declared arson, and John Silver was proved to be the one who set if all off. Silver had claimed insurance money for the house and fled the country. Coral had come to Jim, hands shaking but with a hard look in her eyes. Jim had held her close, knowing that they had both lost something that they could never get back.

 

With their lives in the city burned, Jim and Coral had scraped together what was left of their lives and moved back to Jim’s town, where Caroline was waiting, warm and steady. Caroline’s eyes held the understanding of sorrow, but her hugs held the promise of a future that would come, brighter and unstoppable.

  


*****

  


Jim had thought that the worst part of having a soul-mate was waiting. He woke up one morning to discover he was very wrong. His new scar took up most of his shoulder. Jim had looked and it and known with sickening certainty that it was a bullet wound. The thick ridges of scar tissue around it spoke of rudimentary surgery; none of the clean lines that came from proper tools.

Jim had rushed downstairs to his mother, who had taken one look at him and gasped. That morning, Jim had been shaky and quiet, and Caroline had decided it was a day for tea and blankets on the couch.

It wasn’t until that afternoon that Jim looked into the mirror and saw what Caroline had seen: the long, purple line, trailing down the side of his face. It started near the edge of his eyebrow and stretched down until it was nearly even with his mouth.

Part of Jim was horrified, but part of him was overjoyed. He would never again be able walk through life anonymously, but...neither would his soul-mate. He could deal with whatever staring or odd looks he might accrue. He could handle anything, because he knew now, there was no way he would ever miss his soul-mate.

  


******

  


Ross didn’t remember when he’d realized that he had a soulmate. All he ever remembered was the overpowering instinct to keep it a secret. He had seen what happened to people with poor matches, the way that they would get torn apart. People who for all the world should have been able to be happy together, but they were constantly under attack. Accusations of social climbing and gold-digging were tossed out like candy at a parade. His own parents were soul-mates, and the only place they ever seemed to be happy was when they were safe within the walls of Nampara.

Ross’s mother had come from a long line of the aristocracy. She knew how to hold her head high and toss out scathing insults whilst sipping tea with the most innocuous of expressions on her face. She was savvy and smart, well-suited to the politics of money. She had given it all up for her husband Joshua. They had met in the market, each marked with matching scars, and together they had never looked back. They had moved out to the country, where Joshua had used his skills and Grace’s money to build them a beautiful, sprawling manor.

In the bright world that existed within that tiny corner of the universe, when it was just the three of them, it seemed as though the world ran on a currency of joy and laughter.

Outside the walls was a very different story.

Ross kept to his father’s side, but it was impossible to miss the stares and the jeering of the people. The words spat down at them from cruel mouths. Every time, Joshua would sit Ross down and explain that they could never tell Grace. That it would break his mother’s heart if she were ever to find out.

So Ross stayed silent. When his first scar appeared, a pale line across the palm of his hand, he’d stared at it, and decided that perhaps it was best to stay quiet about that, too.

In his silence though, anger started to take hold. Joshua would tell him to forget the words, to ignore the things that were said, but Ross remembered. Every face and every look, and Ross would catalogue them all.

The first time Ross got in a fight, he was seven, and he lost, badly. He’d managed to land a few hits of his own, before he’d been thrown down to the ground so hard it had taken the skin off his knees. He’d gotten back up for another round, only for the the fight to get broken up. He’d spent the evening getting gravel picked out of his skin, as his mother had looked on with worried eyes.

Ross never noticed the distressed glances from his parents as he got older, and no scars ever seemed to appear. Some of them were difficult to cover up; the surgically-straight ones along his wrist was the worst. So Ross started to get into more fights, and Ross got better at lying. He refused to think about how he kept spiraling closer and closer to damaging himself in ways he couldn’t return from.

He’d taken up with Elizabeth. Intelligent and beautiful, a smart match in every way that Ross thought he wanted. More than the surface lust, they also held long conversations ranging through topics, covering everything from politics to wordplay. Conversations grew long, and as time passed, hands started to wander. They kissed fiercely and brought heat to bodies in the small hours of the night, but as much as they were friends, there were things that they both knew they would never discuss. He wasn’t sure if she had scars, but neither of them ever mentioned it.

Despite his relationship with Elizabeth, Ross never lost the ragged edge that sent him headlong into battles he couldn’t win. When he got in a fight that had ended with him getting a screwdriver shoved into his arm, his parents were finally forced to take action.

Knowing that nothing they did seemed to keep Ross from fighting, the sent him to the army. Their fear never abated as Ross packed his bag and headed off to the catch the bus to boot camp, but they held out hope. Even if they couldn't keep Ross from fighting, perhaps they could at least give him a direction for it; put him in a place where he could move forward instead of collapsing inward.

 

At first, they thought they’d made the right decision. Ross seemed to flourish in the military, finally having found the discipline and groundwork he’d apparently needed.

Everything changed when they got the letter; Ross was alive, but he’d been severely wounded, shot in the shoulder and barely avoiding losing an eye to shrapnel. Joshua and Grace had both wept then, breaking down and clinging to each other.

‘Do you think it would have been different?’ Joshua finally asked, ‘If he had a soulmate, do you think it would have been different.’

Grace could only shake her head. ‘I don’t know.’ She looked up and saw her own sadness reflected in the eyes of her husband. ‘I don’t know.’

 

******

 

Ross came back, changed in all of the ways that his parents had never even dared to fear. The drive and anger still burned, Ross still came home from town with blackened eyes and spitting blood from his mouth.

The difference was the dull sheen to his eyes. Grace and Joshua had seen their son starting to burn himself out, but they had hoped never to see him succeed. Now ross would only have a bitter sneer for the space that once had been filled with laughter.

Grace and Joshua tried their best, but Ross’s desolation seemed to seep into the very foundations of the house. Gears that had once turned perfectly had worked perfectly were starting to slip and break down. The strain of the Ross’s apparent captivation with self-destruction was tearing down every shred of stability that had once held their family together.

One afternoon, Grace had walked into Joshua’s shop, only to find him huddled in the corner, crying. She’d approached quietly, cautiously. She placed a hand on Joshua’s shoulder, and he’d looked up. His eyes were red from crying, and he held in his hands one of Ross’s toy cars that he’d played with as a boy. Grace set her mouth, and decided then that things would change.

It took her several weeks to stumble upon a possible solution. She had been out to town with Ross. He’d been walking behind her, the silent shadow that he’d become since his return from the war. Everything changed at a commotion in the street. Ross shoved the shopping into Grace’s arms and then sprinted off in the direction of the shouting.

Grace hurried after him heart in her throat, fear running through her veins at what she might find Ross getting into. The last thing she expected to see was him helping a young boy up from the ground, then kneeling down to pet the boy’s dog.  Ross pressed some money into the boy’s hand and then turned back to his mother. For the first time in years, Grace saw sparks of the little boy she remembered.

And just like that, Grace had a plan.

Grace had called for a proper family dinner, and Ross and Joshua had dutifully arrived. She waited until every plate was filled with food before she stated her intention.

‘I want to foster a child.’

Joshua stared at her like he’d never heard a more absurd idea, but Grace had been looking at Ross, and the way that he leaned forward, some kind of a spark showing in his eyes for the first time in far too long.

‘Someone local.’ He’d said, ‘There is plenty of need here. There is no reason to go searching elsewhere for people to help.’

Joshua had looked at Grace with understanding, and for the first time, they had hope that they still had a way to reach their son.

Grace pushed the paperwork through with her usual eloquence, and the additional slide of her deep pocketbook.

 

Demelza Carne arrived at their house less than month later, with nothing but a stubborn set to her jaw, and an ugly mutt of a dog who seemed strangely familiar.

 

*****

 

Grace had expected it to take several weeks for the family dynamics to adjust to the addition of Demelza. She was wrong. There had been a single day of a stand-off between Ross and Demelza, that had seemed to be about whether or not Demelza’s dog was allowed on the furniture. There had been a bit of a screaming match in the hallway, but by the time that Grace had arrived to try and sort things out, Ross had been flat on his back having his face thoroughly washed by an over-enthusiastic puppy. Grace had smiled, and mentally declared that matter sorted.

 

After that, it seemed as though Ross had a shadow - or perhaps that Demelza had gained a bodyguard. Grace thought perhaps it was a bit of both. Things had shifted though, in the painful way of a dislocated joint being pushed back into place. After that, it was nothing for months to smooth into years. Ross took Demelza to town, and stopped coming back with bruises. Demelza would sit with Ross in their living room for hours, going over her studies, and every night she seemed less tense, less wary, as she slowly settled in and realized that she did have a place within the family.

It wasn’t that they always got along. Demelza was learned quickly and she wasn’t afraid of her own opinions. Ross would take her to society functions, and she would come back cold and bitter, rejecting their ideas of what passed as happiness. She learned though - far faster than Ross - when to listen, when to keep her mouth shut. Demelza became adept at  _ knowing _ . Ross was so blinded by his desire for direct consequences to action that he never managed to see the bigger picture. Demelza, on the other hand, was learning to play the longer game. Demelza was quick to understand the importance of alliance. 

Demelza heard all the worst that could be thrown at her, every black word, calling her nothing more than a parasite or an amusement. She watched as Ross bristled, itching to fight at every perceived slight. She saw the way that people who could have been friends began to keep their distance. Slowly, it became Demelza who was the one actually receiving invitations to gatherings. She was the one who who had no shortage of people to call, and she was the one that people would send photos to, whenever they got a new scar.

Because Ross had heard the worst of society and learned to fight.

Demelza had gone from the streets to soirées and learned that the words never changed.

 

So, Demelza watched and listened and began to build for herself.  She looked to Ross, who seemed to have endless courage to stand for what he believed to be right. She learned from Joshua, who was steady and devoted and had long ago learned to build his own happiness. Then there was Grace, who taught her elegance and poise, and how to end a conversation in the time it took to dip a biscuit into a cup of tea. She saw the love and the easy joy between Joshua and Grace, the way that they could heal each other on even the worst days, and she looked to her own scars with hope and happiness. She saw Ross fighting for the world he wanted to live in, and she was reminded of her own courage. She had made her own way for so long, but here, in the Poldark family, she could make a difference for more than herself. She could look past her own struggle and work to improve the world on a scale she had never before imagined. 

There was no flash of light or single moment of change. Long afternoons with Joshua, in his shop, learning about cars and chop-saws and wood lathes became habits. Grace’s indulgence of crap telly after dinner became a shared experience, the two of them sharing a single blanket, and huddled together on the couch. It was the trust, when Demelza realized that every time she had a question, the first person she wanted to ask was Ross, because somehow, along the way, he’d become her best friend.

It was more than Grace ever could have hoped for, the day she came home and Demelza and Ross were out wrestling in the yard. Laughter echoed off the walls of Nampara. Grace had sat in her car and cried. She had _children_ and they were _happy_.

  


******

  


Ross was the one who approached her with the idea. Demelza was turning sixteen and she’d never left the county. She had a summer birthday, and Ross had a car. Joshua had agreed immediately, but Grace had been unsure. Then Ross had pulled out a map - it was one that he’d made with Demelza, marked up in all different colours. Highlighted roads, and red circles around places of interest, notes were scratched into the margins; ideas written and crossed out. Grace had taken one look at it and known that she would agree to the trip.

‘How long have you been working on this?’ She finally asked.

Ross grinned, ‘She had this with her when she moved in.’

Grace could feel her heart ache in her chest, and her eyes burned with emotion. Ross was smiling again. Demelza was bright and fierce and intelligent, and making plans to take what she wanted. ‘There is - before you leave, your father and I were thinking of something else.’

Ross cocked his head in curiosity.

‘We still have to ask _her_.’ Joshua reminded her.

Ross frowned, ‘What-’

‘We want to adopt Demelza.’

Ross’s mouth dropped open in shock,but his eyes were sparkling with disbelieving hope. ‘Oh, Mum!’ He shook his head, and smiled so wide his cheeks hurt from it. ‘That - that would be _everything_!’

‘We still have to ask her!’ Joshua repeated, but he was smiling too.

Ross looked up at his parents and bit his lip. He hesitated for a long moment, before crossing the room and pulling them both into a fierce hug.

  


****

 

Demelza had leapt at the chance to carry the Poldark name officially, openly crying at the joy of it. It was after she’d signed the papers that Ross approached her.

‘There’s something else.’ He’d said softly.

‘What else could there possibly be?’ Demelza felt like every dream she’d ever been afraid to dream had just come true.

Then, Ross pressed keys into her hand and pulled a map out of his pocket. ‘What would you say we do a bit of exploring?’

Demelza stared in disbelief at the map, and started to cry again. Then she turned and tackled Ross, hugging him so tightly he was a bit afraid she’d cracked his ribs.

 

On her sixteenth birthday, Demelza got her driver’s license. The next day, she got in the car with her brother, and they started driving.

  


*****

  


They’d only had a week left in their trip, when they stopped in for lunch at a tiny roadside diner in an even tinier town. The sign at the edge of town had read the population of people, cows, horses, and cars over 60 years old. Demelza had laughed and turned to Ross.

‘We’re stopping here.’

‘Are we?’

‘Yes we are. And we’re going to get whatever the special is, and split a piece of cherry pie.’

Ross laughed. ‘Yeah, alright, if you insist.’

Demelza adopted fake haughtiness ‘I do.’

They both dissolved into laughter as Ross pulled into the parking lot of the diner.

 

They entered the diner, still coasting on bubbling happiness.They’d entered the diner, and a bell had gone off somewhere in the back of the building. A voice had called out, ‘Be right with you.’ The man had come out from behind the counter ‘You can take a seat -’ but then he trailed off, when he actually looked at them. Really though, he wasn’t looking at them, his eyes were fixed to the scar on Ross’s face, and the man was gawping unapologetically. Ross stiffened, and the smile slipped from Demelza’s face as she wrapped her hand around Ross’s wrist.

‘You can take a seat anywhere!’ The man said, shaking his head, and gesturing to the wall of empty booths. His eyes never left the side of Ross’s face though.

Demelza glared at the man for all she was worth. She tugged on Ross’s arm again. ‘We don’t have to stay here, if you don’t like.’

‘No.’ Ross closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘No, it’s fine.’ He turned to her and forced a smile. ‘The special and cherry pie, right?’ but his voice was flat. He moved towards the corner booth and Demelza let him go, but not before turning her most hateful look on the waiter.

The waiter flushed, and finally seemed to realize how poorly he’d been acting. Demelza sneered at him again before turning to join Ross at the table.

Somehow they made it through the meal, but conversation was stilted, and every word echoed through the otherwise empty restaurant. Ross even ordered them cherry pie to split, but it was out of obligation more than anything else. Demelza was still seething, and every time Ross tried to smile, all she could see was the way it didn’t reach his eyes. Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore.

‘Can we leave now?’

Ross frowned, but nodded. He put far too much cash down on the table, but he’d rather lose the money than face the waiter again. Demelza was waiting at the car when he caught up to her.

‘We get to ditch this town now, right?’ She said, leaning against the car door, and tapping her foot impatiently.

Ross glanced at her and then at the car. ‘Demelza…’  he shook his head. ‘I need to go for a walk. I’ll be back in an hour, alright?’

‘Here.’ Demelza said, disbelieving. ‘You want to go for a walk here.’

Ross frowned, struggling to come up with the words he wanted. Finally, he pointed at the car. ‘That is for fun.’

‘Yes…?’

‘And that’s - I just need an hour. And then I can do that again. But not right now.’

Demelza’s shoulders fell as she finally understood. She walked forward and pulled Ross into a gentle hug. ‘Take as much time as you need.’ She said and stepped back. ‘Call me when you’re ready.’

Ross sent her a grateful look, and then nodded, before  he started walking back in the direction of the main street.

It wasn’t that Ross didn’t get looks. He did, any range of pity to horror. He knew the line down his face drew attention. It wasn’t subtle, it wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t something anyone could ignore. His parents had offered to pay for treatment for it, but he’d refused. He’d never mentioned his soul-mate to them, but he knew. He knew, and he could never live with the hypocrisy of condemning someone else to live with such a scar when he himself got his removed. The scar was his fault. He’d inflicted it on someone else. The very least that he could do was bear it.

He felt a bit sick when he thought of his soul-mate. He’d pushed away the idea for so long. It had been Demelza who was finally changing his mind on the subject. Ross had only ever seen soul-mates derided and shameful. He’d heard the whispers of old-money and aristocracy and taken them to heart.

It had been Demelza who had reminded him of the world outside of the upper class. That soul-mates were a source of joy for everyone outside the upper echelons. He’d seen her joy, when she’d run to him to show a new scar. It had been a small thing, just a thin line across the top of her left thumb, but her happiness had been absolute. Later, Demelza had run to Grace and Joshua to show them her scar, and Ross had seen the way that they had sparkled with congratulations, the way they seemed to shimmer with giddy exuberance over it.

He’d also seen the glances that they’d thrown his way, of sadness and worry.

Ross growled, put his head down, and walked faster.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking when he finally felt the anger seep out of his blood. The shame and frustration had finally abated back to the point where he could go back to pretending that his life was as it always had been. That people still saw him when they looked at him, and not the thick, purple line down the side of his face.

It was only a week more, and then he’d be back to Nampara. Back to where people knew him well enough to look past it. He could go back to being the sad case. The Poldark who ‘used to be quite a looker.’ which always seemed to be followed by ‘shame about his face though.’

This week was still for Demelza though. It wasn’t for his self-pity, or his self-loathing, or his anger at things he couldn’t change. He sighed, and pushed it all away. He picked up his phone and sent a quick text to Demelza.

\- _On my way back. -_ He sent out. His phone buzzed barely a moment later with Demelza’s reply back.

\- _Meet you there.-_

He pocketed his phone and started his walk back to the car. He paused though, when he passed a little café. The lights were on, which was a bit of a surprise. Everything else on the street looked very closed. Ross pushed his way inside, figuring if they were open, he could pick up something to drink for the trip. He wasn’t sure where they were planning to stop for the night, but Demelza never said no to coffee.

If he was honest with himself, he felt that he had to make it up to her. If it hadn’t been for his reaction in the diner, he was sure they could have had an amazing time.

He walked in and studiously ignored the hushed whispering that he heard behind the counter. He’d been thinking to maybe order fancy drinks, but he knew he couldn’t face another scene like one from the diner. He ordered to drip coffees, and quickly walked to the bar to add cream and sugar.

He berated himself the whole time, as he poured cream into his own drink and sugar into Demelza’s. He should have known better than to stop. Demelza had been right, he needed to get the fuck out of this town. He put the lids back on the cups, then made his way out of the shop.

He’d barely made it a few meters down the path when the door to coffeeshop flew open.

‘Wait!’

Ross turned on instinct, not even processing the desperation in the voice. He stopped when he saw the man calling for him.

Blond and blue-eyed, with a thick, purple scar running down the side of his face.

Ross’s mouth dropped open, and he was frozen to the spot.

The man grinned brilliantly, deep dimples appearing on his face. ‘Wait.’ He said again, but the desperation was gone, leaving disbelieving happiness in its wake. He walked up to Ross. ‘You can’t go.’

Somehow, Ross found his voice. ‘You’re my…’

‘I’m Jim.’ He said.

‘I’m-’ but Ross was lost for words. There was nothing he could say. The closer that Jim got, it was as if Ross could feel something inside him shifting. Like an aching tooth that had just been pulled. He felt like there had been a missing piece in his chest, that had just gotten locked into place. Like somehow, his entire life, he’d been breathing through a straw, and for the first time in his entire life, he could take a full breath.

Jim stepped forward, and gently traced down the line of Ross’s scar. Ross’s eyes fluttered shut and he leaned into the touch, completely unaware of the whine coming from his mouth. Jim’s touch felt like a tornado of flaming butterflies. It was lighter than air and burning and soft and like being electrocuted. Ross was breathless by the time he managed to open his eyes.

‘Hello.’ Jim said softly, still running his hand along the scar.

‘I’m Ross.’

Jim grinned. ‘Well, Ross. I am _very_ glad to meet you.’

Ross blinked and realized he was crying. ‘I-’

Jim leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Ross’s eye - right below his eyebrow, the top of his scar.

Ross swallowed hard. ‘I’m sorry.’

Jim took a step back. ‘You’re sorry? What for?’

Ross tried to gesture, but his hands were still full of coffee cups. ‘I know. I know it’s ugly.’

Jim stared at him in utter incomprehension, then shook his head. He ran his fingers along the scar on his own face. ‘This is my favourite thing in the world.’

Ross stared.

Jim smiled. ‘I was so afraid that I would miss you. I was so afraid that all I would have to go on was banged up knees.’ He took a step back closer to Ross. ‘Then this appeared, and I knew. I knew you were okay, and I knew, that wherever you were, whenever our paths were going to cross, I would see you.’

Ross was completely overwhelmed, on some level he knew he was still crying, and in front of him was this beautiful, golden man, who was twisting everything. Jim, who had seen Ross’s greatest shame and taken it as a sign of strength.

‘Let me take these.’ Jim said, gently lifting the coffee from Ross’s hands and placing them on a nearby window sill. He stepped back into Ross’s space. Ross was wiping his eyes a bit frantically, and Jim’s chest ached with affection. As much as Jim wanted to simply step in and whisk Ross away, he knew there were other things that had to be said first.

Ross finally sniffed for the last time, and then stood back, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Jim stared for a long while, unsure of how to ask the question that was burning in his mind. ‘So, Ross.’ He took a deep breath to steady himself, ‘Is there anyone else?’

Ross blinked at him for a moment, and then his mouth dropped open. ‘Oh shit, Demelza!’

And that was all it took for Jim’s world to come crashing down. Any trace of his earlier happiness had been replaced with a void. So that was it then. He’d waited too long. He felt a bit weak, like, the ground suddenly wasn’t as stable as it used to be.

Then he felt Ross’s hands on his shoulders, warm and steady. It took a while for the rushing of Jim’s ears to clear enough that he could actually hear what Ross was saying. ‘No, no, no, no, not like that, it isn’t like that! She’s my sister I need to call her, there’s nobody else, there - nobody else. It wouldn’t matter anyway, nobody- you aren’t like anybody else, it’s just you, I get it now, I get it, it’s just you…’

Jim looked up, saw the worry and the love in dark eyes, and any kind of rational thought was gone. He leaned up and kissed Ross. It started gentle, just the shock of sensation coursing through them both, the intrinsic knowledge that their hearts were beating in sync and that somehow, in all the world, they had managed to find each other. Soon though, the press of plush lips gave way to fire, to teeth and tongues, heat burning through bone, soldering the two of them together in ways that could never come undone.

It was the rush of blood and the certainty of mountains and the power of earthquakes, shaking through them, carving through doubt and hesitation and leaving in nothing behind. Hurts that had long since calcified were destroyed, shaken loose and consumed by the fire as they were reforged. All of the pieces that had worn down or broken were repaired, shining and new, refurbished to now function in tandem. Every shadowed corner that ever grown dark from loneliness was burnt away, leaving open space and hope in it’s place. It was a single moment when every single atom in the universe aligned, and they could feel it, feel the spin of the earth as it moved, feel the pull of the moon on the tides and smell the bubbling heat of the sun.

They kissed for no time at all but also an eternity. Even after their lips parted, the world stayed still for them, wrapping them in a cocoon until every piece had finished clicking into place.

Finally Jim straightened up and Ross did too, before he reached out to take Jim’s hand, marveling at the way it seemed to fit so perfectly in his own. Jim smiled at him, and it was the most beautiful thing that Ross had ever seen. Ross stepped closer, dropping Jim’s hand to instead wrap an arm around his waist. He hummed in contentment. Yes, that was better. Jim’s head came to rest on his shoulder, and they just stood that way for a while, basking in the presence of each other.

Neither of them were sure how much time had passed when Demelza finally found them. It took her one glance to figure it out. She grinned at the pair of them. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I know we’ve got another week of road trip, but maybe we should just spend it here.’

Ross looked up and blinked at her. ‘I-’

‘Or at least another day or two.’ She said, raising an eyebrow.

Ross glanced down at his soul-mate and then across to his sister and he couldn’t stop smiling. ‘Maybe a day or two.’ He agreed.

Jim looked at them. ‘And I know just the place you should stay.’

Demelza giggled. ‘I’m sure you do.’

‘Hey!’ Jim said with mock-hurt. ‘Actually, though. My mum runs a Bed and Breakfast.’ He paused, ‘You can stay as long as you like.’

Demelza watched as Ross pulled Jim a bit closer and she smiled.

‘Sounds perfect.’

 

**Author's Note:**

> So. Clearly I respond well to prompts. So. If you ever want to come say hi, or leave me something you'd maybe like to see written or anything [this is my tumblr!](http://taupefox59.tumblr.com/)


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